The Internet comprises a vast number of computers and computer networks that are interconnected through communications links. Many different services and protocols operate over the Internet, including email, the world-wide-web (WWW), file transfer, and chat services.
The WWW service consists of server systems and client systems exchanging documents via the Hyper-Text Transport Protocol (HTTP). Server systems are generally permanently dedicated computers with high bandwidth connections to the Internet. They host the Internet content, run the server software, and perform many types of calculations. Client systems are generally personal computers being controlled by an individual. They display a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to the user, and run applications, such as browsers, which allow users to send requests for Internet content to the server systems, and then view the content.
Internet content is any publicly available content accessible via the Internet. Content accessible via the Internet may consist of Hyper-Text-Mark-up-Language (HTML) documents, images, portable document files (PDF), flash, video, audio, animation, etc. Typically, a client requests and displays these documents using a browser. All Internet content can be identified via a Uniform Resource Locater (URL), a string of text including a protocol name, machine name (expressed in text, but translated to IP address via a system called Domain Name System (DNS)), remote directory name, and file name. It is these URLs which allow the powerful “linking” behavior which is a prominent feature of browsers.
Many of the early innovations on the WWW consisted of means of finding high quality Internet content.
For instance, search engines are server side applications which accept keyword input from clients, and attempt to find Internet content to which those words are relevant. They generally do this by downloading large numbers of documents, and indexing them in a sophisticated database. When keyword queries are received, these databases are used to locate Internet content which contains the specified keywords, whereupon the URLs which refer to this Internet content are returned to the client. The user reviews any information provided about each URL to determine which selection(s) of Internet content, if any, are of interest. The user then indicates to the browser, typically by clicking a link, to retrieve the Internet content referenced by the selected URL. The browser then retrieves and displays this content. Thus search engines involve multiple steps for users: typing in keywords, submitting the query, reviewing summaries, and clicking on links to the actual Internet content. Some search engines have a feature which involves redirecting the browser directly to the first result of a keyword search. This reduces the number of steps that the user must perform. It is important to recognize, however, that this is not a single-action method. The effectiveness of this feature is often a matter of luck, as the relevance and quality of the search engine's first selection may not be significantly different from that of further selections.
Another Internet content service, typically known as a “portal,” consists of dynamically generated web pages with content tailored for the user. For instance, via a simple questionnaire, a server may discover that the client is interested in a particular subject matter. Future visits from that client (which can be determined by any number of existing technologies) can be rewarded with pages containing links to Internet content about that subject matter. The user may review these links for an indication of content that may be of interest. The user then indicates to the browser, typically by clicking a link, to retrieve the Internet content referenced by the selected link. The browser then retrieves and displays this content. As in the case of search engines, this is a multiple-action method. It also requires that the user visit the portal site on a regular basis, to check for new links of interest.
There are also many services on the Internet designed to locate highly specific types of data, based upon user preferences. Match making services are an example. These services attempt to match people, based on shared interests, user-specified preferences, and so forth. Another common example is online stock portfolios. These services allow users to view financial market information assembled in a customized fashion. In general, such services present the user with relevant information specific to the domains to which they apply. These domains are often quite small and highly specialized. The content which they present typically is provided only by the service in question, or its affiliates and partners. Of particular importance is to note that recommendations made by such services are, in fact, recommendations for objects in that domain as opposed to recommendations of Internet content. For example, match making services recommend people. Investment services recommend investments. Online bookstores recommend books. In a sense, recommendations received from these services present users with more specific information in the domain of the service provider but do not present users with information that they would not have known to look for. In this respect, these services operate almost as a domain-specific search engine supporting complex queries. The personalization and recommendation technologies used by such services tend to be very specific to their respective domains. These technologies are not extensible to the full scope of Internet content.
Personal bookmark systems, embedded as a part of most major browsers, are essentially ways to remember URLs on the client side. Since finding quality Internet content can be difficult, it is convenient to remember URLs specifying the location of that content. Many people use their bookmarks in more public ways as well; making them publicly available via their own web pages, sending them to friends, or otherwise essentially using shared bookmarking behavior to locate good Internet content. This method requires extensive user action, but is often the source of recommendations superior to any automated system yet in existence.
The system and method detailed herein describe a new and innovative method of locating high quality Internet content, where an essential feature is single-action convenience. For a browser-based client, the indication of this single-action is always available regardless of the currently displayed content. Equally important, all of the content recommended by the server system has been recommended to the server system by its users. Users are preferably human beings, but may potentially be any automated system that interfaces with the server system in the same way as would an individual person. Potentially, this could include systems that find and/or rate content, such as web spiders.